"Dinner" Peak

On our last P-day, we decided to climb Donner Peak.  (Ok, I decided and Marc went along.)  It was beautiful.  We left at 7:00 a.m. and were on the trail by 8:00.  We were glad we went early because when we got to the top we had it all to ourselves.  On the way back down there were lots of people and dogs.  I guess the trick in the Sierras is to get there early or the trails are super crowded.  Donner peak is just past Donner Pass in California.  Funny because when I texted pictures to my family, my phone kept autocorrecting to “Dinner” Peak.  Some Freudian iphone thing I guess.

From the top of Donner Peak.  Elevation 7,056 ft
Donner Lake in the Background

Donner Peak

Our last couple of District Council Meetings have been more interesting than in the past because they had more to do with working with ward members and less-active members.  That’s what our whole mission is about so we felt like we had more to share.  Sometimes we feel like we want to say, “Hey, listen, we know what we’re talking about.  We’ve been doing this for 40 years!”  But it’s not always easy to tell a 19-yr-old something.  We have some great missionaries in our district though.  There are two sets of elders and one set of sisters and us fogies. 

We’ve decided to start taking the missionaries in our district out to dinner, one companionship at a time.  We started this because we are concerned about one of the new elders and wanted to get to know them better.  (Thanks Sister Petersen for that idea.)  So we took the District Leader and his companion out this week to Chili’s.  After we left the restaurant one elder said, “I can’t wait to be a senior missionary so we can take the missionaries out to dinner and fun stuff.”  At least if we accomplish nothing else here, we can inspire the young missionaries to shoot for a senior mission when they get older.

Elder Butz, Elder Jensen, Elder & Sister Williams

Speaking of senior missionaries, Marc told you that we suggested a senior missionary prep class to our Stake Presidency.  They actually went for it.  We get lots of questions from the older members of our ward so we hope this will be well received.  We told the presidency that our stake had started off with a senior missionary fireside, not knowing they would actually put us in charge of the whole thing.  Hope it goes as well as our stake’s did (the one we were NOT in charge of). 

Marc and I were feeling like we had way too much down time during the days and were feeling guilty about it (at least I was).  I was a little hesitant to suggest that we talk to President Godoy about it because I was sure he would tell us we should start knocking on doors.  But we finally decided to go talk to him.  Before we left I said to Marc, “maybe we could help inspect missionaries’ apartments or something.”  When we sat down and talked to President, he said, “Well, I know it won’t work for you to go out finding (knocking on doors) in your ward.  My wife and I tried it and it just doesn’t work there. The members will have to be the finders.”  (Can’t tell you the great wave of relief that swept over me. Haha.)  He told us most of the senior couple like to relax in the mornings and get errands done but that if we had the energy maybe we needed an additional assignment—like inspecting apartments!  We’re not sure it will happen and we may be sorry if it does, but we will be happy to have more to do.  At least for the time being, I am feeling a lot less guilt.

On a sad note, we lost our patient that we had been visiting at the hospital since we got here in June.  We went to see her and her room was empty.  We went to the desk and they said she was in room 101.  We told them we were just there and she was gone.  There were five people at the desk and no one knew where she was.  We hadn’t exchanged numbers with the family because frankly, we never saw them.  We pretty much her only visitors.  We hope she didn’t die but we’re pretty sure someone on her floor would have known if someone had passed away and she had been feeling much better.  We think they would have at least hinted if she had died since they know us as her ministers.  We called the main hospital and they said she was in room 101!   Well, you’d think they could keep track of their patients.  We think they just moved her to a different facility.

Our ward is very good to us here and they often feed us dinner.  Somehow word has gotten out that Elder Williams likes ice cream and they all feed us ice cream for dessert.  Marc has even started bringing his ice cream scoop with him, which embarrasses one of us, but people are (or pretend to be) impressed with his special scoop.

I saved our best experience for last.  We visited a less active sister who hasn’t attended church for years.  We showed her the “Christ-like Attributes” video.  It’s only about 3 minutes long but she started to cry (like real sobs) and said, “I miss. . . .”  She couldn’t finish her sentence but we know what she meant.  She missed the feeling the Spirit brings.  So she said we can continue to visit and will ask her husband if her 8-year old son can take the lessons from us.  We’re pretty excited!

Actually, we often feel like we are not doing much but when we look back at things we have accomplished we realized we are doing quite a bit.  We remember the scripture in D&C 18:15 that says, “And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father.”  We know it’s true.

Lake Mary from Donner Peak Trail

Donner Peak

Near Top of Donner Peak